This invention relates to a data distribution system and more specifically to a demand data distribution system with applications to an advanced multimedia entertainment system.
Entertainment systems and more specifically in-flight entertainment systems installed on large aircraft such as airliners have more passenger seats than sources of program material. The programming is continuously broadcast on a pre-assigned channel. For smaller entertainment systems for use in such applications as business jets, the entertainment systems have large numbers of programs with a small number of seats. Using the large aircraft type system in the small aircraft application places large bandwidth requirements on the data distribution system.
Digital interface buses are known in the art for interconnection of computers and other digital devices. Many different serial and parallel interface busses have evolved through the years for a wide variety of applications. Digital multimedia audio and video devices used in computer applications have added, new requirements for a digital high-speed interface bus.
A data distribution architecture for use in entertainment systems and other data distribution systems should have a high degree of fault tolerance to meet new demanding applications. A high-speed serial bus architecture may be organized in a mixture of daisy chain and tree structures. With this architecture any break in the cables between the daisy-chained devices or failure of a device interface function hardware will cause a break in the bus structure. A portion or branch of the tree architecture is no longer part of the network.
What is needed is a data distribution architecture that serves audio, video, and data distribution systems and specifically smaller in-flight entertainment systems. The data distribution system needs to be a fault tolerant high-speed interface bus such that any failure in a cable or a device in the bus structure will not disable a portion of the network. What is needed is a redundant cable to bypass failed portions of the network.
The present invention relates to a demand data distribution system. The demand data distribution system may be used with multimedia entertainment systems and with multimedia entertainment systems used in aircraft in-flight entertainment systems. The demand data distribution system utilizes a high-speed digital bus such as the IEEE 1394 serial data bus for interconnection of the system. The demand data distribution system has fault tolerant features and employs a loop gate to bypass failed parts of the data distribution system. The demand data distribution system comprises a plurality of nodes that receive data and a plurality of data distribution channels. Each of plurality of nodes has an individually assigned channel for receiving data. A plurality of data sources provides the data to the plurality of nodes over the plurality of channels. Each of nodes selects a data source to provide data on the individually assigned channel. The demand data distribution system includes a bus manager node in the plurality of nodes for controlling the data distribution system. A loop gate node in the plurality of nodes provides loops around failed nodes. The bus manager commands a second node to change to the first node channel if the data source is already broadcasting to the first node. The bus manager and the loop gate work together to determine if a node is failed. The bus manager determines if a node is responding properly and the loop gate checks network traffic at each of its ports. The loop gate attempts to communicate with the bus manager over each of its ports when a failed node is detected. The bus manager shuts down the failed node and the loop gate enables a correct port to reattach the demand data distribution system.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a data distribution system that delivers the data when demanded over a channel assigned to the user.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a data distribution system that is fault tolerant.
It is an advantage of the present invention to provide a demand data distribution architecture that is applicable to entertainment systems.
It is a feature of the present invention to provide a demand data distribution architecture that can bypass failed nodes of the data distribution system.